Rob Denler > Rob's Quotes

“In many cases, our need to wonder about or be told what God wants in a certain situation is nothing short of a clear indication of how little we are engaged in His work.”
― Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

“God has His own training methods, and it is usually true that His way up first leads down, for the mountain is only as high as the valley is deep.”
― J. Oswald Sanders

“If Christians around the world were to suddenly renounce their personal agendas, their life goals and their aspirations, and begin responding in radical obedience to everything God showed them. the world would be turned upside down. How do we know? Because that's what first century Christians did, and the world is still talking about it.”
― Henry T. Blackaby, Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God's Agenda

“A great man is always willing to be little.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.”
― Will Rogers

“if we are going to be genuinely Christlike, we will not be conformists! For one, our Lord can hardly be called a conformist. He disturbed the status quo, railed against injustice and lack of mercy, hung out with highly questionable people, and fomented a revolution that called for the overthrow of religious oppression.”
― Alan Hirsch, Untamed (Shapevine): Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship

“I think it is fair to say that in the Western church, we have by and large lost the art of disciple making. We have done so partly because we have reduced it to the intellectual assimilation of ideas, partly because of the abiding impact of cultural Christianity embedded in the Christendom understanding of church, and partly because the phenomenon of consumerism in our own day pushes against a true following of Jesus.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways

“A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“If we're going to impact our world in the name of Jesus, it will be because people like you and me took action in the power of the Spirit. Ever since the mission and ministry of Jesus, God has never stopped calling for a movement of "Little Jesuses" to follow him into the world and unleash the remarkable redemptive genius that lies in the very message we carry. Given the situation of the Church in the West, much will now depend on whether we are willing to break out of a stifling herd instinct and find God again in the context of the advancing kingdom of God.”
― Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church

“Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.”
― Andrew Murray

“The Anatomy of Conflict:

If there is no communication then there is no respect. If there is no respect then there is no caring. If there is no caring then there is no understanding. If there is no understanding then there is no compassion. If there is no compassion then there is no empathy. If there is no empathy then there is no forgiveness. If there is no forgiveness then there is no kindness. If there is no kindness then there is no honesty. If there is no honesty then there is no love. If there is no love then God doesn't reside there. If God doesn't reside there then there is no peace. If there is no peace then there is no happiness. If there is no happiness ----then there IS CONFLICT BECAUSE THERE IS NO COMMUNICATION!”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Leaders approach conflict with an eye for resolution. When handled effectively, successful confrontations raise team performance. To manage conflict effectively, you must begin by recognizing there are three sides to every story:
Yours / Theirs / The Truth”
― Angie Morgan

“Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.”
― A.W. Tozer

“Rest and be thankful.”
― William Wordsworth

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
― Mother Teresa

“It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.”
― David Levithan, Every Day

“Jesus calls us to his rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.”
― A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

“So often we are inclined to keep our lives hidden. Shame and guilt prevent us from letting others know what we are living. We think: 'If my family and friends knew the dark cravings of my heart and my strange mental wanderings, they would push me away and exclude me from their company.' But the opposite is true. When we dare to lift our cup and let our friends know what is in it, they will be encouraged to lift their cups and share with us their own anxiously hidden secrets. The greatest healing often takes place when we no longer feel isolated by our shame and guilt and discover that others often feel what we feel and think what we think and have the fears, apprehensions, and preoccupations we have."
Henri Nouwen, Can You Drink the Cup”
― Henri Nouwen